MARIA

Blood. Bones. Pain. It came with the territory of her chosen path of a Warden chirurgeon, where she found her battlefield among stacks of books and closing wounds and mending harm done by the cruelty of the world. Derelict maulings. Bites. Pestilence. Turns of study on the world's weapons against those who lived upon it, with her focus on the most lethal of them all. The Corruption, the core left behind in someone's body to chew up their soul, and a rejection of their immune system in violent, bloody bursts. Convulsing flashes, though her research notes detailed different responses to the Corruption's swallowing intent. Flashes nonetheless, no matter what form they took. Anatomical drawings of those halfway through the transformation, she made notes between her checks on Yuven, who hadn't moved an inch. Her mug of herbal tea sat in a small coaster, the foamy bubbles within steaming with a soft scent of flowers.

Underneath her piles of texts she borrowed from the Asairai lodge, she double checked all her research and sourced them back to the original documents with updated information and understanding at what she faced with her mind instead of the crescent blade she left in their room, sat against Yuven's. Thumb against her lips, she turned the pages and listened to the rolling carts of other Healers outside, their sole focus on their only deathly ill patient since Kayal. Sweat and mire hung across the walls, and she made a note to clean out the dirty buckets full of coagulated black blood Yuven expelled for careful study and then respectful disposal in the fires of the volcano, a being of pure force and power. Yuven shifted a bit with a soft, ragged breath past his lips, his gray capped feathers limp against the pillow. Maria reached forward to a new page in the patient ledger in preparation, but brought his attention to him when he squeezed his expression tight then opened his eyes at her.

"Are you thirsty?" Maria grabbed one of the phials of water mixed with a dose of stardust to quell his pain. "If you can't drink all of it, that's fine. A drop is better than none." Her hand found his to help him grab it, and she came closer to help him sit up, hooking her foot around a new bucket to drag it closer. Lavastone in her palm, she pressed it against Yuven's temple to equalize her magick with the fever rushing through his body, the same fever chewing at Fenrer with much more ferocity than the man on death's door. Little strange... but it's more than likely because all his life Yuven's dealt with feeling like this.

He pressed the phial against his lips, and Maria counted as he took careful, dry sips. Until he lurched with a quiet, alarmed, "Maria," when a cascade of tangled blood dripped past his lips and the lavastone seared at her skin in warning.

"Bucket, Yuven, don't hold it in," she said and sent her magick into its bottom to levitate it into the chair right beside him as he threw up into it. Frost swept across his beaded pupils, but he retained awareness as she hurried over to the ledger to mark down the time on her moonwatch before returning to his side. A throaty, wet hiss left through his teeth when the expulsion went through its first wave. Maria breathed upon an ember in her palm, then tossed it into her crucible to heat up her most recent crushed mixture to make the liquid component melt and bubble against the herbs to create the thick syrup. Another wave, another violent reaction of his body when he wheezed out his life. Another mark on the ledger to add to the multitude.

In the end, a lot of her work was a waiting game.

Yuven's lips went white at its lull, death's hand around his throat when he swayed and the frost sprinkled into fatality. Maria hurried back over to his side before he dropped. "Easy, Ice Knight," she whispered through the rock in her own throat and set him back across the bed and reactivated the air stones in the divots of the mattress to help him breathe. With her patient settled, she dragged the cart of buckets back to the door to push it outside for one of the others to sweep up and take to the alchemist hall deep nearest the volcano's bowels. Ancients... Hands on her hips, she closed the door again and sent wisps of flame into the lamps beside the door to try and choke out the stench of death looming over them both. And I have to send one of the other Healers to check on Fenrer... I think maybe I can keep track of the progress depending on Fenrer's reactions... these waves are impossible to predict... Maria checked the time on her watch when Yuven calmed, writing it down in the margin beside the start.

"Fenrer...?" Yuven mumbled.

"I'll keep checking on him too," she mumbled at her desk. Her attention once more slid to him when Yuven put a hand on his solar plexus. "Are you feeling something specific?"

Yuven's lips parted. "It's... I feel warm."

"You don't feel cold?" Maria rolled her chair over and put the bucket in the corner near his head. She lifted his shirt halfway up his chest to push her hand against his stomach. Embers grew out of a glyph when she listened to the flow of his body, magick, and soul. Back to her set of tools, she extended the listening device to send the glyph deep into its hollow circuitry before stretching the bendable end over Yuven's upper chest, where his heart fluttered in a faint, uneven rhythm. "What type of warmth?"

"It just..." Yuven croaked and set his hand back at his side as she listened deeper to the language his body spoke instead. "It's not uncomfortable if that's what you are asking me... it feels familiar, I just can't put my tongue on it." He squinted, then closed his eyes as his body's exhaustion stole him into its embrace instead of hers. Maria snapped the instrument closed and folded the bendable piece up to hook it into place. Her crucible ticked out a warning of her superheated flames, and she left his side to pour the new mixture into the mixing bowl to finish up the tonic. Her teeth chewed the bridge of her finger when she found herself without a firm direction to go, forcing herself to sit down at the bite of tears in the corners of her entire world. Flames flickered in the magelight's well floating over her the alchemy station. Steam stuck to the beakers and pushed the components to add to the tonic's final stage as it slowly squeezed into a tiny phial.

I'm not going to give up on you so easily. Maria swiped the phial when the station hissed out a plume of steam into itself and reloaded the little runes on the curves of the tubes. Her own shadow flattened itself over his head, and she touched his shoulder. "Yuven," she whispered, and he tore open his tired eyes. "Hungry? You need something in you. Keep your strength up." He accepted her extension of help to press the phial against his lips once more, this one going down easier than the other from his lack of reaction. "I'll get another one ready for you soon. Let that go through your system."

"Hm." He used a finger to push the phial off his lips. "I need you to do me a favour, Myl'la." He let out a soft moan when he adjusted his shoulders against the padding of his bed. "You haven't left this room since I came in here, I want you to check on Fenrer for me... tell me how he's doing." He squeezed her wrist with a shaky lick of his lips. "Please, Myl'la. I knew this would come, and still he wanted to be my Oathbound knowing this would happen." He dug his fingers in, but his touch remained gentle and soft into long nights. "I would feel better..."

"Will you get some sleep if I do?" Maria asked.

"I will try... though even if I said no..." Yuven's lips quirked at the corners into a weak smile. "I think I would not get the option anyway to not sleep." He released a heavy breath. "I am not Fenrer, Maria. And I want you to have fresher air than the stench in here." His nose scrunched. "Even with those pipelines the fresh air that touches this place instantly wilts... I feel unclean, that is the worst part."

Maria smiled at his instinct to fight. "I'll have someone fill and prepare the washing basin while I'm on the main floor. I know it doesn't replace a bath, but it's better than nothing in your condition." Out of her chair, she patted his face, and he nuzzled into it. "I'll check on Fenrer and be right back here. I'll leave one of the other Healers on duty to monitor you until I return." Maria fixed the creases in her alchemic coat, fixing the medical bag around her waist before leaving the room. "Ijuna!" she called down at the other end, causing said Storm Warden to roll out of their station to investigate the call, their black curls bouncing with the movement. "Keep an eye on Yuven Traye for me. Make sure to detail his expulsions if any happen while I'm out."

Ijuna hauled themself out of the chair to hurry down the hall with a pat into her back before sliding into Yuven's room without complaint. Maria bounced on her heel, then pointed at Yuven. "Behave." She smiled at his scoff when she rounded out of the room. She stopped by the front area to grab sterile tools to put them in their proper sections within her thick medical bag before taking on a running start to the lift out of the safest area of the citadel. Ink walls gave way to mosaic golds and softest whites mixed with clouds. The mountain breeze proved the respite Yuven begged her to seek, and she found her ability to walk returning after long nights of careful observation. Her hand touched the necklace Yuven gave her, a connection of a fleeting life — and an uncertain future. Into the western corridors, she came close to the entrance of the shrine before following its circle of power to Fenrer's room.

Neven held Fenrer up by the shoulders, with the last time Maria unable to leave Yuven's side and sending Adara with another Healer in her place. "Maria," Neven said on the melody he shared with his adoptive son.

"What are you doing here?" Fenrer pleaded when she went straight for him to check on him. "Yuven is..."

"I've already done what I can for Yuven." Maria silenced him and cupped his chin. He stared at her, or through her. "You've burnt up. Forget about cooking eggs, I could cook a whole meal." She indicated for Neven to keep a hold on him as she sorted through her pack.

"It's nothing... Yuven probably feels so much worse..." his Hanekan came out breathless when she brought a lavastone closer to his temple, but hesitated when it burned brighter before she touched his skin. Her hand went to his chin again to keep him straightened out, with Neven brushing his back.

"I don't know if you noticed, but it's not normal if this lavastone is already burning before it touches you, Fen," she said with a firm poke into his cheeks. "Your fever is at a level that would kill someone else. Be thankful for our giant's blood, I can only assume that's the reason it hasn't. Now, let's see..." Maria let him go to sort through her pack. "I'm going to take some of your blood to check for an infection..." Her attention drifted to the still swirls of his Auric eyes, where his inner flow centralized the most and made him an Aurus. He leaned into Neven's support, who frowned at him with a small, quiet humming chirp in his chest. The same sound Mother made whenever Maria got into too much trouble when she was young. "Yuven's the one that wanted me to come up here, aye? Bite onto this, hard as you can." Maria handed him a thin strip of frozen syrup, putting her arm around his shaky shoulder and came closer to Neven to listen to Fenrer's breathing from behind. One hand on the nape of his neck, her flames skittered at the heat radiating from his body. "Neven," she whispered after snapping her finger near Fenrer's ear, and he gave little reaction to the noise.

"Hm?"

Maria scooted closer. "Keep a close eye on Fenrer," she said. "I've seen stuff like this before. His body is reacting like it's fighting an infection of some sort. At some point it's just going to shut down what it doesn't need to fight off what it thinks is in Fenrer. And I think his state will tell us a lot about where Yuven's at along the Event."

"Is it reacting from Yuven?" Neven murmured.

Maria bit on her cheek and nodded. "I don't know what else it could be, it's possible the Corruption is oozing into their Oathbound connection, trying to find something else to latch onto now that Yuven's soul is starting to reject it. It's my theory anyway, I already told Fenrer there was nothing in my research about corrupted Oathbounds and what happened to the other one when the Event came to pass." One more snap of her finger, and Fenrer continued to chew on the frozen syrup strip. Maria shook her head once more, and straightened herself out to check on Fenrer. "Oi, Fen?"

"Hm...?"

"Did the strip help at all?"

"No..."

Great.

Neven released another stifled chirp of parental concern as his feathers fluffed out at the ends. "How was Yuven?" he questioned as Fenrer's attention wavered. "If he needs me—"

"Fighting it, but it's rough," Maria admitted and packed up her tools. "Trust me, Neven, I think he's getting the feedback loop of what's happening to Fenrer. Just stay here, Yuven would appreciate it more. If he changes, send Adara down. Let her know to keep an eye on Fenrer — it's incredible that he found someone he might actually listen to."

"Very well." Neven smiled. "Tell Yuven if he wants anything from outside to let me know, and I will grab it."

"Will do." Maria hooked her medicine bag back on her belt and left Fenrer's room.

Not many Storm Wardens can fight the battles I, and many other Healers, have fought — at its most hopeless, that is when we find power in our Oaths.